{"id":3829,"date":"2017-03-24T15:11:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T15:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/?p=3829"},"modified":"2017-08-22T12:03:40","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T12:03:40","slug":"st-botolphs-study-folk-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/greydogtales.com\/blog\/st-botolphs-study-folk-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"St Botolph’s – A Study in Folk Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, dear listener, we bow to both popular and unpopular demand, and offer you a brief excursion to the parish of St Botolph-in-the-Wolds<\/strong><\/span>, in darkest Yorkshire. A location of which H P Lovecraft<\/strong> once said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI shall no doubt have to tone this benighted place down if I want to base my modest tales upon it. It contains such peculiar horrors that no editor is likely to respond with any kindness.\u201d (Note to his milkman, 15th July 1923)<\/em><\/p>\n

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For those new to the subject, St Botolph-in-the-Wolds might be described as a sleepy English Parish set in the rolling countryside of East Yorkshire, far from the hustle and bustle of city life. A village where everyone knows each other, and life is much the same as it was centuries ago.<\/p>\n

This would be a stupid description.<\/p>\n

It may be geographically correct, but life in St Botolph’s is complex, argumentative and filled with new terrors every day. More than one resident dreams of escaping to find peace in a violent urban crack ghetto, surrounded by burning tyres and daily police raids. People may indeed know their neighbours, but they may not always be sure what their neighbours are.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that the Concerned Ladies Committee of the village, formed originally for charitable acts, is mostly concerned about having to live in St Botolph-in-the-Wolds. Members of the Women’s Institute are heavily armed, and the local Girl Guides are seriously feral, with a long-term Brasso addiction.<\/p>\n

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The main village choral society is the The Children of the Empty Furrow<\/strong><\/em>, described as:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Yorkshire Wolds’ outstanding primitive folk group.\u201d (Poultry Botherers’ Gazette, 2011)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Their most popular songs include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. ‘The Earth Bleeds, and the Seas Burn: My Scorched Lungs Sing of Thee’ (acapello)<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. ‘The Drums of God are Made from the Flayed Skin of His Enemies’<\/em><\/li>\n
  3. ‘Why Do Your Eyes Bleed in the Sunlight, Mother?’ (duet)<\/em><\/li>\n
  4. ‘The Old Wicker Tree on the Hill’ (traditional)<\/em><\/li>\n
  5. ‘Lemon Tree’ (hardcore blood-rage version, arr. Nina and Fredrik)<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If You Go Down to the Woods Today<\/h1>\n

    Scholars are divided as to what makes St Botolph’s so unusual. There is no doubt that the looming presence of Whateley Wood<\/strong>, north of the village proper, plays its part. Home to the oak, the Western Hemlock and an especially offensive type of briar, the woods contain many remains of early fertility and sacrificial cults.<\/p>\n

    These include obscenely carved altars – where the Womens’ Institute leaves offerings of home-made raspberry jam at key times of the year – and a gleaming black stone from antiquity, whose surface is chill and moist even on the hottest day. This stands alone in a clearing which smells of charred bone, and is marked ‘Pickering 14 miles’<\/em>. The sheer malevolence of the woods can be seen from the fact that Pickering is not<\/strong> actually 14 miles away. And it’s in the other direction.<\/p>\n

    Paths through the woods often appear and disappear at random. The unwary traveller may find themselves lost in a ravening gloom, surrounded by nightjacks and tendrilled things \u2013 or worse, may end up at Malton bus station. The main section is also inhabited by a large colony of bronchitic whip-poor-wills. Normally typical of the witch-haunted hills of New England, these small, coughing birds are always on the lookout for souls to conduct into the Afterlife.<\/p>\n

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    Or perhaps its origins are to blame. It has been variously claimed that the village started life as:<\/p>\n